Nineteen public school students, 11 private school students, and one home-schooled student will vie to become the champion of the 28th annual Anne Arundel County Spelling Bee on February 20, 2016. The event begins at 10 a.m. in the Board Room of the Parham Building, located at 2644 Riva Road in Annapolis.
The county bee is a partnership of Anne Arundel County Public Schools and the 21st Century Education Foundation. This year’s event sponsor is Educational Systems Federal Credit Union. The champion sponsors for this year are the Josephine B. Scheffenacker Education Trust and Capital-Gazette Communications.
The champion of the county bee wins an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee in May. There will be other prizes for the county’s top spellers, including monetary awards from the 21st Century Education Foundation, as well as reference books and gift items from Merriam-Webster, Bowie Baysox, and Krispy Kreme.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a not-for-profit educational promotion sponsored by The E.W. Scripps Company in conjunction with businesses and community organizations around the world. Each sponsor organizes a spelling bee program in its community with the cooperation of area school officials: private, charter, parochial, public, and home schools.
Participants in this year’s bee are:
- Becky Schrader, Grade 8, Annapolis Area Christian School
- Anna Patterson, Grade 7, Annapolis Middle School
- Robert Stanley, Grade 8, Arundel Middle School
- Isabella Everett, Grade 6, Brooklyn Park Middle School
- Ian Abusamra, Grade 6, Central Middle School
- Kendall Bobick, Grade 7, Chesapeake Bay Middle School
- Natalie Mullen, Grade 6, Corkran Middle School
- Caroline Keller, Grade 6, Crofton Middle School
- Sean Thursby, Grade 8, George Fox Middle School
- Storrie Kulynych-Irvin, Grade 7, Homeschool
- Cade Fanning, Grade 6, Indian Creek School
- Noah Simon, Grade 7, Key School
- Bea Abaria, Grade 6, Lindale Middle School
- Haja Bundu, Grade 6, MacArthur Middle School
- Nathan Howard, Grade 8, Magothy River Middle School
- Paul Ng, Grade 8, Marley Middle School
- Gerald Baffour-Awuah, Grade 7, Meade Middle School
- Lana Cate, Grade 6, Montessori International Children’s House
- Allison Lee, Grade 8, Old Mill Middle School North
- Emerson Moore, Grade 7, Old Mill Middle School South
- Julianna Bibbo, Grade 7, School of the Incarnation
- Catcher Salazar, Grade 6, Severn River Middle School
- Grant Shanahan, Grade 8, Severn School
- Sabina Holz, Grade 8, Severna Park Middle School
- Stephen Nicholson, Grade 8, Southern Middle School
- Sean Lonergan, Grade 8, St. Andrew’s United Methodist Day School
- Amir Thomas, Grade 6, St. Anne’s School of Annapolis
- Emma Nemeth, Grade 8, St. John the Evangelist
- Gavin Birchfield, Grade 6, St. Martin Lutheran School
- Brooke Powell, Grade 8, St. Mary’s Elementary School
- Isabel Messina, Grade 6, Wiley H. Bates Middle School